‘Dark Nuns’ Review
There are few countries that are as successful at horror as South Korea. A dedication to delivering finely-tuned bouts of terror combined with methodical examinations of lore and history has provided us with modern classics like Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing, Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw The Devil, Bong Joon-ho’s The Host, and Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan, to name a few. All wrestling with very different facets of horror, they often treat their subject matter with a severity that illuminates both their characters and the horrors that await them. It’s the strict attention to detail and understanding that the process of confronting evil is almost as rewarding as defeating it that has made exorcism films a particularly bountiful subgenre to explore, with movies like The Wailing, Exhuma, and 2015’s The Priests highlighting Korea’s fascination with procedural elements as a means of investigating the source of true terror.
This makes it slightly understandable why, a decade after Jang Jae-hyun’s The Priests released, a spin-off film has arrived that gender flips the narrative in Kwon Hyeok-jae’s Dark Nuns. Making just enough mention of Jang’s film to bridge the gap between the new characters introduced and why we’re not graced with the presence of Father Kim (Kim Yoon-seok) this time around, Dark Nuns only holds the faintest resemblance to Jang’s film. It’s most notable in that aforementioned severity, which tends to overwhelm Korean horror and leans into the darkness that makes the atmosphere oppressive to both the characters and the audience. It’s a technique that has worked in the past but is questionable here as Sister Junia (Song Hye-kyo) takes on an exorcism case against Father Paolo’s (Lee Jin-wook) wishes. With her cold, no-nonsense attitude, she’s not exactly well-liked by her peers, but her actions bring results. Partnered with Sister Michaela (Jeon Yeo-been), the two nuns attempt to save a young boy, Hee-joon (Moon Woo-jin), from the demon possessing his body.
This intensity in every facet of Kwon’s film is questionable because it does not quite reflect what made The Priests an enjoyable horror film. There is minimal personality to be found in the characters, and their rapport is that of a stern teacher and an unconfident student. Their individual performances are strong enough, and the character of Sister Michaela has an interesting past that could have yielded greater tension in the film, but it’s mostly just something to pad out the conversations between Junia and Michaela before proceeding with the exorcism. The Priests had an endearing chemistry between Father Kim and Deacon Choi (Gang Dong-won) that made watching the two work together an exciting venture. There was humour there, and Jang would later finesse that blend of horror and black comedy with 2024’s Exhuma. Here, it’s just overwhelmingly bleak and dependent on the performances to break through the coldly written characters.
Established rules of how to properly perform an exorcism from The Priests continue here, further cementing the procedural elements as a key component of what makes the exorcism work. As seen in so many movies, it’s the kind of scene that can make or break a film as it pushes characters to the edge while delivering the horror promised. While the exorcism here does an excellent job as the centrepiece of Dark Nuns, it does feel like if you had not seen Jang’s film, you might have questions about why certain elements are focused on as heavily as they are. It’s an intense, oppressively dark sequence with some fantastic lighting and relies heavily on the same realism as before to immerse audiences in the process. Punctuated by Kim Tae-seong’s (who worked on the previous film) impressive score, if Dark Nuns is built solely around making its exorcism work, it mostly succeeds.
Kwon’s been a bit all over the place throughout his career, but as a fan of his 2010 film Troubleshooter, it’s hard not to be a little disappointed that the balance of comedy and visceral action of that film didn’t get translated over for Dark Nuns. Instead, it all just feels so bleak and serious. It’s a weird misfire, given the tonal balance of The Priests and Kwon’s filmography up to this point. It’s also unfortunate to have a great actor like Song Hye-kyo wasted on something where atmosphere takes precedence over the characters. While Dark Nuns is somewhat entertaining at times and makes good on its exorcism, the film itself lacks the personality and charms of its predecessor and barely manages to stand out in a sea of haunting Korean horror films.
